The world's 500 richest individuals have boosted their wealth to $10 trillion.

The 500 richest individuals in the world saw a significant increase in their wealth in 2024, with Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jensen Huang elevating the billionaire group to a new record: their combined wealth surged to $10 trillion, reports Bloomberg.

The unstoppable rise of American tech stocks played a crucial role in boosting the fortunes of these three, as well as those of Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell, and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

This year, just eight tech titans earned over $600 billion, accounting for 43% of the $1.5 trillion increase among the 500 wealthiest individuals, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

However, it was Elon Musk – the so-called first friend of elected President Donald Trump after unprecedented support for his electoral campaign – who dominated among the world's richest in 2024.

His close ties with the incoming president helped boost the value of his companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI. This increased his wealth to an unprecedented $442.1 billion, which is $213 billion higher than at the beginning of the year.

The $237 billion gap between Musk and Bezos on December 17 was the largest ever recorded between the individuals holding the first and second positions in the Bloomberg billionaire index.

Overall, the wealthiest people in the world benefited from a stock market that exceeded expectations in 2024. The S&P 500 rose by 24% by Monday, thanks to a small group of stocks referred to as the "fantastic seven," including Musk's Tesla, Zuckerberg's Meta, and Huang's Nvidia, which accounted for more than half of the benchmark's performance.

Trump's electoral victory contributed to the gains: the S&P 500 reached an all-time high on November 6, marking the best performance following an election day in history.

The billionaires featured in the index collectively earned $505 billion in the five weeks following the elections, representing 34% of the annual total.

Donald Trump significantly benefited from his presidential campaign victory. Recently, he transferred a controlling stake in Trump Media & Technology Group into a trust, which has nearly doubled in value over the year to $7 billion. The company owns the elected president's social network – Truth Social.

French "luxury billionaires" saw a decline in their wealth – Bernard Arnault (LVMH), Françoise Bettencourt Meyers (L'Oreal), and François Pinault (Gucci). Their total wealth decreased by $71 billion.

Also among the losers are Temu and Pinduoduo owner Colin Huang, Mexican magnate Carlos Slim, and founder of Vietnamese electric vehicle company VinFast Auto, Pham Nhat Vuong.

Background. Recall that recently The Insider wrote that Russian oligarchs continue to profit from trade with Europe – billion-dollar profits from trade with the EU are being earned by the most notorious Russian oligarchs Gennady Timchenko, Alisher Usmanov, and Oleg Deripaska.